Jonathan Boston provides an insightful analysis of the emergence and persistence of child poverty in New Zealand (Boston, 2014, "Educational Philosophy and Theory"). His remarks on why child poverty matters are brief but, as he reports, "there is a large and robust body of research on the harmful consequences of child poverty"…

The COVID-19 crisis has led to widespread temporary school closures and a deep economic recession. School closures have threatened children's ability to learn and later return to school well prepared. The impact of the economic recession is going to be even more devastating: first for students, but also for the ability of some Catholic schools to…

In response to the diverse number of child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention programs currently implemented in school contexts, this paper examines key considerations for selecting such initiatives and the multiplicity of understandings required to inform facilitation of contextually relevant prevention curriculum. First, the paper examines concerns…

Objectives: To obtain comprehensive, reliable data on the direct cost of pediatric abusive head trauma in New Zealand, and to use this data to evaluate the possible cost-benefit of a national primary prevention program. Methods: A 5 year cohort of infants with abusive head trauma admitted to hospital in Auckland, New Zealand was reviewed. We…

This article examines the nature of relationships between funders and applied theatre companies. Recognising that this is a murky terrain where competing agendas and goals can jeopardise the effectiveness of applied theatre programmes, the article traces the history of the funding relationship between Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd and Child,…

This paper examines an education programme devised by the New Zealand educational theatre company, "Everyday Theatre," which offers a fictional representation of family abuse. The paper raises political questions about the dramatic representation of the family as a social system, and examines how the boundaries between private feelings…

Kimberly Howard and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn examine home visiting, an increasingly popular method for delivering services for families, as a strategy for preventing child abuse and neglect. They focus on early interventions because infants are at greater risk for child abuse and neglect than are older children. In their article, Howard and Brooks-Gunn…

The United States leads the developed world in youth violence, with the highest homicide and suicide rates among young people. Exposure starts early. To reduce violence in U.S. schools, we must control handguns, abolish television violence, isolate violent students, and change the ways that juvenile offenders are punished. (MLH)

Follow-up interviews 1 year after exposure to a national school-based personal safety program with 117 children in New Zealand found the children had retained and increased their safety strategies. Highly committed teachers were the most important variable in affecting gains by children. Middle-class children gained more from the program than did…